


Dark and Deadly World

by helo572



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Birds, Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 12:06:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18164981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helo572/pseuds/helo572
Summary: Nate's day plans are uninterrupted by an unexpected visitor to Valentine's Detective Agency.





	Dark and Deadly World

**Author's Note:**

> Publishing old WIPs. Enjoy!

Valentine's Detective Agency is eerily quiet when Nate swings by in the late afternoon. The sun's just starting to get lazy, disappearing behind the tall green walls of Diamond City to sink down over the horizon.

 

Nate knocks, loudly, and then peeks inside through the small slit he's created in the main doorway. “Nick? You here, ya sneaky synth?” Again, there's no answer. “Nick? O' my Valentine?”

 

There's  _ someone _ here; the lights are on, and the handheld lamp is sitting over Nick's desk near some strewn paperwork. Absent-mindedly, Nate pushes the treasured documents away from the flame, tucking them safely away in their folder.

 

“Oh, detective Valentine, would you save my from this terrible peril?” he tries next, pitching his voice to that similar of a certain journalist, still glancing over the detective's desk. There's no clues. He'd think that if Nick were to disappear, even for a few hours, he'd leave a trail of evidence for Nate to chase him down with. “I... oh... well, seem to have misplaced a synth. I travelled days to get here, to see him, and he's  _ not here _ .”

 

There's a scuffle from the back of the little room, where Ellie keeps her things. Nate, now with a grin on his face, creeps over. The instinct to grab his 10mm is far too strong, especially as he blindly turns the corner to see... well.. Nick Valentine, of course, as still as a stone.

 

He's sprawled across Ellie's cot (without Ellie in it, too), flat on his back, save his head awkwardly propped up against the wall so his chin is affixed to his chest. His coat is gathered on his stomach, where his piercing yellow eyes are directed, and sadly,  _ not _ at Nate.

 

“Nick? What are you doing?”

 

The detective is smiling, albeit barely. “I... ah, yeah. Couldn't move too much. Would'a said something... but... yeah.” He still doesn't spare a glance at Nate.

 

Protectiveness flares quickly from within Nate's chest as he steps forward suddenly, to set his hands on Nick; to see what's wrong, but finally the detective sets his eyes on him.

 

“No, don't,” he says, and his gaze drops back down to his tummy, where his coat is sitting in a lump. “You'll scare it.”

 

“It?” Nate frowns.

 

“Yeah, it. Come take a look, sweetheart.  _ Slowly _ .”

 

Still frowning, Nate creeps around to Nick's bedside, and discovers what has captured the synth's detective is in fact not some case file, or old pre-war relic, or even a photograph of Nate himself, but a bird.

 

“Ah,” Nate says.

 

“Found it out near the radio tower, think it got caught in all that wire-y mess,” he explains, again, without moving so much as a joint. His servos are even whirring quieter. “Broken its wing, poor little thing. Ended up down here, because I intended to sit down and rifle through Ellie's toolbox to see if I could screw together something to help it, but it got pretty comfortable in my coat. Alas.” He gestures with a gentle nod of his head towards the sleeping little bird.

 

Nate looks; it's brown and very small, and its little eyes are closed. It looks perfectly content, asleep in the rolls of Nick’s worn coat.

 

“You’re both adorable,” Nate declares with a smirk. “Here, shuffle over and let me take over babysitting. You can go fix him a bird sling… thing. For his wing.”

 

Nick still looks hesitant about moving, but caves when the sleeping animal lets out long, happy chirp, like it was snoring. “Aw, alright,” he says. “Careful now.”

 

Gathering his coat, he lifts the birds and presents it to Nate. It doesn’t stir, even when Nate settles back down in the cot in Nick’s place.

 

“Now who’s adorable,” Nick throws over his shoulder, disappearing into the office.

 

“Definitely still you,” returns Nate, coupled with his own content noise. He really was the luckiest man in the world, cradling the luckiest bird in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading x


End file.
